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"If you have the right people, like, in the agencies and the various people that do the balancing ... you can cut the numbers by two pennies and three pennies a

"If you have the right people, like, in the agencies and the various people that do the balancing ... you can cut the numbers by two pennies and three pennies and balance a budget quickly and have a stronger and better country." -Trump "I’m pledging to cut the deficit by half by the end of my first term in office." -Obama "We must balance the federal budget. We can do so without raising taxes. What we need to do is impose spending discipline." -George W. Bush [ Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich actually did briefly balance the budget ] "Balancing the budget is a little like protecting your virtue: You just have to learn to say 'no'". -Reagan

agildehaus 7y ago
Obama did cut the deficit in half. More than half. At least over the course of his entire presidency, not sure about the first term.
- jsight 7y ago
  It wasn't by the end of his first term, though, right? Fair point overall, though.
- karl11 7y ago
  He did, but only after he doubled it his first couple years.
  - gnaritas 7y ago
    That's a lie, he was handed a trillion + deficit coming in; which he cut down virtually every year of his presidency.
  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    Well, again, in fairness, that was because the global economy had been run into the ground. The situation he stepped into had little to do with him.
    - leereeves 7y ago
      He did vote in favor of the bank bailout (as a Senator) so the large deficit in 2009 did have a little to do with him.
      - bilbo0s 7y ago
        Yes. But that assumes that the global economy had been run into the ground because of the bank bailouts. This is not the case. The situation these leaders were presented with left them with few options. The time to act with complete freedom of movement would have been before the crash. Once the crash happens, your options are severely restricted.
        leereeves 7y ago
        The bankers who were bailed out were the very people who ran the economy into the ground. The government could have unwound the situation without bailing them out. But the relevant point for this discussion is: that was a one-time event and not a fair comparison with future deficits. Deficits from later years should be compared to 2008 or 2007, or to 2009's budget without the bank bailouts.
- m0zg 7y ago
  He also nearly doubled the national debt though.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  To be clear, when your predecessor is Bush the Lesser, and he has run the global economy into the ground, this is not that difficult a task to accomplish. But yes, Obama at least, moved in the right direction.
- leereeves 7y ago
  That's using the abnormally large deficit in 2009 caused by the bank bailout as the starting point. The deficits even at the end of his second term were larger than the deficit in 2007 and about the same as 2008. https://www.thebalance.com/us-deficit-by-year-3306306 https://www.thebalance.com/us-deficit-by-year-3306306
JudgeWapner 7y ago
curious why you're being downvoted. If your message is "many presidents for the last few decades have tried and failed to balance the budget", I think you're correct. Looking at the bigger picture, it seems like the two-party system is incentivized to NOT solve this problem. If you're a member of Tweedle-Dee in congress, and the president is a registered Tweedle-Dum, you can't help her solve the budget issue because then she'll have that jewel in her crown to win re-election. This being a tech forum, I offer a tech solution (maybe this already exists, who knows): we need some kind of impartial data structure about every piece of legislation in congress. Some example attributes would be {tax: up/dn/na, introduced by: Rep/Dem/3p, services: add/sub/na, lobbyst dollars: $(mln), ... } but there would be many more. The idea being that the meta data could be easily broken down to show the manipulation and dirty deeds the lawmakers do pass and block these bills. The most glaring one is when they piggyback unrelated changes into the same bill (I forget the term for this, but it's dirty). So that Senator WhatsHisName can't be blamed for voting against the ThinkOfTheChildren Act. He could point to the metadata and say "this bill would increase taxes by $1b, double our nuclear arsenal, and only give $9m to the children through one school lunch company in one district in the nation". The metadata would clearly show that some idiot put a school-lunch bill in with a nuclear weapons bill. Then the media (likely bloggers, because the major networks seldom talk about the composition of bills) can name and shame the idiot who bundled those together and make them answer for it. Just the threat of bringing these things to light should be enough to discourage it. Another goal of the metadata, would be to shame lawmakers who vote against something for partisan-only reasons even though it clearly benefits the people. So if the president tries to balanace the budget, has congress draft even a minor change in that direction, the metadata would need to expose anyone who got in the way. Find some way to corner them and make them say "no, we don't need a balanced budget" OR, "balanced budget would be great, but I can't vote for something that Tweedle-Dum is behind". Just bring this dirty behavior to light in the most objective way possible: with unbiased metadata. I know this data already exist in the bills themselves, but the American public don't read these bills, they need a very concise (and impartial) summary that they can cite and that they trust to not be biased. Some sort of standardization.

agildehaus 7y ago

Obama did cut the deficit in half. More than half. At least over the course of his entire presidency, not sure about the first term.

jsight 7y ago
It wasn't by the end of his first term, though, right? Fair point overall, though.
karl11 7y ago
He did, but only after he doubled it his first couple years.
- gnaritas 7y ago
  That's a lie, he was handed a trillion + deficit coming in; which he cut down virtually every year of his presidency.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  Well, again, in fairness, that was because the global economy had been run into the ground. The situation he stepped into had little to do with him.
  - leereeves 7y ago
    He did vote in favor of the bank bailout (as a Senator) so the large deficit in 2009 did have a little to do with him.
    - bilbo0s 7y ago
      Yes. But that assumes that the global economy had been run into the ground because of the bank bailouts. This is not the case. The situation these leaders were presented with left them with few options. The time to act with complete freedom of movement would have been before the crash. Once the crash happens, your options are severely restricted.
      - leereeves 7y ago
        The bankers who were bailed out were the very people who ran the economy into the ground. The government could have unwound the situation without bailing them out. But the relevant point for this discussion is: that was a one-time event and not a fair comparison with future deficits. Deficits from later years should be compared to 2008 or 2007, or to 2009's budget without the bank bailouts.
m0zg 7y ago
He also nearly doubled the national debt though.
bilbo0s 7y ago
To be clear, when your predecessor is Bush the Lesser, and he has run the global economy into the ground, this is not that difficult a task to accomplish. But yes, Obama at least, moved in the right direction.
leereeves 7y ago
That's using the abnormally large deficit in 2009 caused by the bank bailout as the starting point. The deficits even at the end of his second term were larger than the deficit in 2007 and about the same as 2008. https://www.thebalance.com/us-deficit-by-year-3306306 https://www.thebalance.com/us-deficit-by-year-3306306

JudgeWapner 7y ago

curious why you're being downvoted. If your message is "many presidents for the last few decades have tried and failed to balance the budget", I think you're correct. Looking at the bigger picture, it seems like the two-party system is incentivized to NOT solve this problem. If you're a member of Tweedle-Dee in congress, and the president is a registered Tweedle-Dum, you can't help her solve the budget issue because then she'll have that jewel in her crown to win re-election. This being a tech forum, I offer a tech solution (maybe this already exists, who knows): we need some kind of impartial data structure about every piece of legislation in congress. Some example attributes would be {tax: up/dn/na, introduced by: Rep/Dem/3p, services: add/sub/na, lobbyst dollars: $(mln), ... } but there would be many more. The idea being that the meta data could be easily broken down to show the manipulation and dirty deeds the lawmakers do pass and block these bills. The most glaring one is when they piggyback unrelated changes into the same bill (I forget the term for this, but it's dirty). So that Senator WhatsHisName can't be blamed for voting against the ThinkOfTheChildren Act. He could point to the metadata and say "this bill would increase taxes by $1b, double our nuclear arsenal, and only give $9m to the children through one school lunch company in one district in the nation". The metadata would clearly show that some idiot put a school-lunch bill in with a nuclear weapons bill. Then the media (likely bloggers, because the major networks seldom talk about the composition of bills) can name and shame the idiot who bundled those together and make them answer for it. Just the threat of bringing these things to light should be enough to discourage it. Another goal of the metadata, would be to shame lawmakers who vote against something for partisan-only reasons even though it clearly benefits the people. So if the president tries to balanace the budget, has congress draft even a minor change in that direction, the metadata would need to expose anyone who got in the way. Find some way to corner them and make them say "no, we don't need a balanced budget" OR, "balanced budget would be great, but I can't vote for something that Tweedle-Dum is behind". Just bring this dirty behavior to light in the most objective way possible: with unbiased metadata. I know this data already exist in the bills themselves, but the American public don't read these bills, they need a very concise (and impartial) summary that they can cite and that they trust to not be biased. Some sort of standardization.